Star Spangled Banner Lyrics, Francis Scott Key, 1814

Anthem – Song of praise, or devotion

Written as a poem after witnessing the victory of American forces during the War of 1812, and later musically set to a popular British song.  Historically, this anthem has been controversial.  Originally, people objected because it is difficult to sing.    In the 1968 Olympics, American athletes raised their fists when the anthem was played in a human rights salute.  Also in 1968, Jose Feliciano strummed a slow, blues style rendition at a World Series baseball game, and some objected..  In 1990, Roseanne Barr screeched her rendition, and spit and grabbed her crotch, acting like a baseball player at a San Diego Padres game.  Steven Tyler from Aerosmith has sung the anthem at several events, and has forgotten the lyrics, or made up his own.

Do you know the all words to the anthem?  Do you sing when it is played?  Do you stand, take off your hat, stop talking and looking at your phone when you hear it?  Should you be criticized or punished if you do not do these respectful actions?

 

 

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!^[27]